All seven bills passed, six of which with little amendments and mostly along party lines. The Education Freedom Act of 2025 (HB 6004/SB 6001), not surprisingly, was the center of much debate and activity on the hill during the week. The capitol was host to hundreds of activists for school safety (in the wake of the Antioch High School student shooting the previous week) along with passionate constituent groups for and against school choice. The bill had little trouble getting through committees. When it came for votes on the House floor Thursday, a 4-hour session that included over two dozen amendments and impassioned debate and testimonies from legislators, the bill was passed in the House with 53 votes and later in the Senate with 20 votes. While the Democrats uniformly opposed the bill, the Republican caucus was split, as many, particularly rural, communities and school boards have spoken out against the private school scholarship program.
Of note to TICUA: the bill’s provision in Section 5 to redirect sports wagering funds from higher education scholarships to K-12 construction projects was successfully amended slightly. Although the funds will continue to be redirected to K-12, a provision was added stating, “In any year, if the net lottery proceeds deposited in the lottery for education account. . .are not sufficient to meet the amount appropriated for educational program and purposes” then funds in the amount of the deficiency will be taken from this new K-12 construction fund and be moved over to the lottery for education account.
TICUA, in agreement with THEC, has several proposals about how to continue to expand the HOPE scholarship to meet more of the needs of Tennessee college students, so we hope this reallocation will not hamper legislators’ willingness to grow HOPE programs and other higher education funding to keep up with inflation as our Tennessee universities’ enrollment continues to grow in the coming years.
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